I wonder if you can identify a moment or season in your life when the circumstances of the time were mixed, laced, with so much pain and suffering that any sense of God being close or present seemed an impossibility?
I do not know a single person who has not experienced the Dark Night of the Soul, as John of the Cross labels it. They, we have all felt God absent and yet although this is a shared, common, experience, we deceive ourselves that we are alone in it and that God is far off.
You see I believe that this feeling of absence is normal. I believe that it shows us that we might just be growing spiritually in a positive direction. Now I know that this conclusion might seem counter to what we have been taught in the church previously. Let me explain by using an image that I read from Phileena Heuertz. In her book, Mindful Silence: The Heart of Christian Contemplation, she writes:
"Surprising to some, darkness is a central part of a faithful life. But before darkness sets in, generally we have learned from experience that God can be trusted, at least to some degree. Deepening trust allows us to give God more access to our life and being. Then the love of God burns stronger and brighter [in us].
The love of God is intense and radiant when it burns. Like a camping log, God alights us with flames. Then, at some point in the journey, God's consuming love obscures that which it's burning. And so, often times when God is at work in our life, we are overcome with the sense of darkness. Just as the log is consumed and reduced to ashes, we are overcome."
Hear those words again: "we are overcome with the sense of darkness." It is a sense that God is far off or that God is not listening to our prayers or attending to our needs. But this is not true at all.
Our Loving God is always close at hand. He is consuming all that we are and refining us into a people who can share the burning presence of God in their community. And so I wonder today again, have you ever felt God absent?
If so, perhaps He closer than you realized. . . Maybe that might be the good news that someone you know needs to hear today?
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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